Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870–1915 , edited by Joost Jongerden and Jelle Verheij
Bajalan, Djene Rhys
2014-06-10 00:00:00
(Leiden: Brill, 2012). $180 cloth, isbn -13: 9789004225183. This volume is comprised of a variety of articles from a number of leading Ottoman historians. It examines the turbulent history of the city of Diyarbekir (now commonly referred as Diyarbakir) and its immediate hinterland during the latter days of Ottoman rule. Today, Diyarbakir is perhaps Turkey’s most well known center of Kurdish culture and political life. However, rather than focusing on recent events, this collection of articles examines the region’s complex and multi-cultural past. Jongerden and Verheij describe their motivation for publishing such a work as stemming from “a strong element of dissatisfaction with existing historical studies [relating to Diyarbakir]” (2). More specifically, they complain that, although numerous studies have examined developments in the region from an “imperial perspective,” such works have failed to take into account political activities that occurred outside the imperial center. It is with this tendency that the authors in the volume seek to remedy by adopting a “poly-centric” and “poly-active” approach to the region’s history, stressing the interaction of regional and imperial centers as well as amongst a diverse set of local agents in the driving the historical process. By adopting such an approach,
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Abstract

(Leiden: Brill, 2012). $180 cloth, isbn -13: 9789004225183. This volume is comprised of a variety of articles from a number of leading Ottoman historians. It examines the turbulent history of the city of Diyarbekir (now commonly referred as Diyarbakir) and its immediate hinterland during the latter days of Ottoman rule. Today, Diyarbakir is perhaps Turkey’s most well known center of Kurdish culture and political life. However, rather than focusing on recent events, this collection of articles examines the region’s complex and multi-cultural past. Jongerden and Verheij describe their motivation for publishing such a work as stemming from “a strong element of dissatisfaction with existing historical studies [relating to Diyarbakir]” (2). More specifically, they complain that, although numerous studies have examined developments in the region from an “imperial perspective,” such works have failed to take into account political activities that occurred outside the imperial center. It is with this tendency that the authors in the volume seek to remedy by adopting a “poly-centric” and “poly-active” approach to the region’s history, stressing the interaction of regional and imperial centers as well as amongst a diverse set of local agents in the driving the historical process. By adopting such an approach,